


The Next Holiday

by stendahls



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU, Comfort, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 04:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18422850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stendahls/pseuds/stendahls
Summary: Klaus absolutely hates Halloween, so his siblings decide to help him get through it. (AU where things end peacefully and they all live together after the jump)





	The Next Holiday

Klaus hated Halloween.

Wait, no, that was an understatement. He loathed Halloween. He despised it. 

Even just thinking about the holiday made anxiety knot in his gut. Which is why as the air began to cool and everything became a little more pumpkin themed, he decided to distance himself from the outside world. He did this every year, and so had developed a routine. First he would stock up on whatever food items he needed just before the stores started setting out the displays. He wouldn’t have to worry about that this year thanks to his siblings being around to grocery shop. Next, he would arrange stuff to keep him busy so he could avoid watching television or visiting any websites that might promote the holiday. He had a nice stack of old VHS tapes and DVDs from the family room, as well as access to a huge (if boring) library, so that was yet another thing on his list checked off. The final step was usually the most simple: wait. However, that step would be particularly hard this year due to the fact that he was relatively sober, and so wouldn’t be able to essentially become comatose for a couple months as he usually did, coming back to reality only when the decorations were being taken down. His siblings had mercifully allowed him to break his sobriety just enough to make things manageable, and so he was allowed pain pills and marijuana, but nothing stronger. It was enough to block out the worst of the spirits without making him lose touch with reality.

It wasn’t necessarily everything about Halloween that scared him, pumpkins, black cats, and little sheet ghosts did nothing besides look adorable. But thinking too much about what they represented made him feel sick. Even the smell of fall in the air made him feel dizzy. This holiday represented everything he hated the most, about the world, about his past, and about himself. It was a mockery of everything he had suffered through. During other seasons he could sometimes go weeks while pretending he was normal. He sometimes tried to ignore Ben, and other times tried to convince himself that he was just an imaginary friend gone out of control. Ben usually got pissed at that, and so after a lot of arguing and pill taking, Klaus would give up and accept his fate yet again as Number 4. Even so, the other seasons were easy to manage. Halloween gave him no escape. Every corner he turned, everything he saw, it praised and glorified the blood and terror he had been subjected to every moment of his life. Even the shitty fake blood on the vampire costumes made him shake with fear. 

So when he walked down the staircase that morning and saw Luther cheerily setting up a fake zombie doll near the front door, he didn’t react well. In fact he reacted terribly. In a pure panic he rushed forward and attempted to shove Luther away, but he wouldn’t budge. Instead he settled for grabbing the nearly life-sized doll and throwing it at the wall as hard as he could manage. One of the arms broke off and rolled across the floor. Klaus stomped on it.

Luther, understandably, was upset. “What the hell did you do that for?!” Even when he yelled, he never raised his voice too high. He was absolute shit at being scary. Size aside, he looked about as intimidating as a puppy.

Klaus sputtered as he stalled for something to say. How could he possibly describe all of the feelings this holiday put in him? He couldn’t, and so, overwhelmed with emotions, he started to cry. He tried to sputter out an apology for the tears, but it caught in his throat and came out as a sob. His mind was immediately overwhelmed with visions of everything that scared him. If he could just put one of them into words then maybe he would understand, but every attempt to explain brought another image to mind, until eventually hyperventilation had joined with his crying, making his sobs interrupted by intermittent desperate gasps for air.

His brother wasted no time fixing the problem in the way he best saw fit. It was a method Luther used to solve most emotional problems, and it was surprisingly effective: a simple hug. Klaus tensed and then relaxed as his brother wrapped him in a huge embrace. It was incredibly awkward, and he could tell Luther was trying to mind his own strength by how tense he was, but it still helped. Never one to hide his emotions, he buried his face in his brothers chest and let the tears flow. He received a very gentle pat on the back in return. It was nice. Eventually his breathing slowed, and he wiped his eyes as he gently stepped backward, establishing the hug was over. Luther let go and stood there looking lost for words. It was very obvious his first choice was to hug because he had no idea how to comfort people using words, but still he tried, and his effort was appreciated. 

“Are you...Uhm, what’s going on?”

“Can we, maybe, possibly, skip Halloween this year?” He gave a slight smile to try to show he was feeling better, but his tense body language betrayed him as he continued to shrink into himself, crossing his arms and fiddling nervously with his dog tags. He wore two, one his own, the other Dave’s. Soldiers were normally required to wear two per necklace, but both his and Dave’s spares had been torn off by medics seeking to identify them in battle, leaving him with only two. He desperately tried to push this thought out of his mind so he could focus on his brother’s speaking.

Luther looked extremely confused and began to protest, but seemed to catch himself, “Why would we do that?” He was doing that weird thing he always did when he tried to help people with their emotions. He stood rigidly, but tilted kind of to the side, like he was trying to look relaxed and nonthreatening while also being scared shitless. He held his arms awkwardly to his sides, not moving them, just standing still. One time when Vanya was having a bad day, Luther waved his arm to gesture to something on the other side of the room, and she flinched. Ever since then he stood as still as a statue when anyone was feeling bad around him.

Klaus avoided eye contact as he tried to think of an excuse. After a long moment of searching, he realized that he had no reason to lie besides feeling ashamed, and considering how the rest of his life had gone, this was probably one of the least embarrassing situations his brother had seen him in. He took a deep breath before he spoke slowly and quietly, each word coming out as a struggle to say, “Halloween makes me have flashbacks and panic attacks because it reminds me of all the shit,” the last word was harsh and dripping with anger, “that dad put me through as a kid. And it doesn’t help with the Vietnam stuff either. And…it’s just scary.”

From behind him at the top of the stairs he heard a quiet voice say “Good job,” Ben usually stayed silent and far away during times like these. He felt it was best to let Klaus handle his emotions and relationships on his own. He didn’t want to get involved or be responsible for such important things in his life, but he often gave a small amount of comfort when he could.

Luther nodded thoughtfully, biting his lip as he considered Klaus’ confession. “Well,” he began, trailing off as he thought more. “I’ll talk to the others about it, not because I don’t care! But it’s a big thing and we need to decide things, y’know...together,” although he sounded hesitant to say it, his voice held a certain kind of charge that made it clear he wouldn’t accept any argument. Against all evidence to the contrary he still considered himself to be the authority of the house.

Klaus understood. It was a hard choice, and deciding to banish an entire holiday just because of him wouldn’t be very fair to his siblings, especially to Five. Their father had of course never let them participate in it as children, except once on their collective sixteenth birthday, when they were allowed to trick or treat in a small vicinity around the house. He had faked sick to stay inside that day. But Five wasn’t there for that, and so he felt a pang of guilt for trying to deny his brother of such a simple yet important experience. He nodded enthusiastically, “No, I understand, it’s stupid of me anywa-”

“It’s not stupid! Oh, shoot, sorry for interrupting,” he winced at his mistake.

“It’s okay,” he laughed a little at how precious it was that he was putting in this much effort to help, “I really appreciate it,” he said sincerely.

The taller man smiled and nodded. A few moments of silence passed between them.

“I’m gonna go to-”

“Well, I’m gonna head up-”

They spoke at the same time, awkwardly tripping over each others words as they parted ways. Ben looked horrified as Klaus ascended the stairs.

“That was the most awkward thing I’ve ever seen,” he said amusedly as he followed his brother to his room. “Did you guys just learn to talk yesterday or something?”

As he entered his room, Klaus threw a pillow at his brother, remaining unsurprised as it soared through his form and hit the wall behind him. He laid down on his bed and grabbed the book he had been reading earlier, smiling slightly as Ben sat down next to him and began to read his own. As he began to lose himself in the writing he briefly wondered where the hell he kept getting those ghost books from.

By the time he decided to put his book down, the sun had set and it was approaching dinner time. He stretched and made a point of waving his legs through Ben. It annoyed the hell out of him, and Klaus laughed as his brother pointlessly threw his book at his face. After a lot of procrastinating, his stomach couldn’t wait any longer, and he begrudgingly began to make his way downstairs. He mentally prepared himself to be confronted with pumpkins and cats and whatever else cutesy shit they were using for Halloween decorations these days.

Instead, he walked into the living room and saw...a Christmas tree? He froze, trying to remember if he had taken any kind of substance that could cause him to hallucinate, but he couldn’t recall. He turned his gaze toward the couch where Allison and Diego sat...watching a Christmas movie. He looked towards Ben to confirm what he was seeing, and was met with a very confused nod of confirmation. He slowly walked forward, approaching the couch nervously. At best, this was some sort of hallucination. At worst, it was time travel gone haywire. Or no, even worse, this was some terrible ghost version of a Christmas where his siblings had died long ago. His terror must have shown on his face because Allison stood up immediately when she saw him.

“Are you alright?” She asked, her voice heavy with concern. She held her arms out like she was prepared to catch him if he fainted.

He took a step back from her and put his arms up in a subconscious move of defense as he struggled to speak, “What...the fuck...is happening to me?”

Diego sighed, “I told you this was a stupid idea! Klaus, you’re fine.”

He definitely didn’t feel fine. 

Allison spoke next, shooting an angry glare towards her brother on the couch as she offered a gentle reassurance, “It’s okay, you’re not hallucinating, you’re not high-”

“Or dead,” Diego offered.

He was met with another stern look, “Luther came to us and told us that you don’t like Halloween, so…” she gestured around the room, “we thought why not skip it? Jump straight to the next holiday!” She looked slightly nervous as she watched for her sibling’s reaction.

Klaus ignored the fact that the next holiday was Thanksgiving, not Christmas, as he followed her gesture and gazed around the room, realizing that the tree wasn’t the only decoration. Paper snowflakes, little ceramic snowmen, and plush reindeer sat around on various surfaces. They were all decorations he recognized from his childhood. Mom had had bought them at the insistence of the kids, and they enjoyed a short lived time out in the open before Reginald saw them and demanded they be thrown out. He had always assumed they had been put in the trash, but it seemed like Pogo must have stored them somewhere. He tried (and failed) to contain his smile. “I...I don’t know what to say!” 

Allison looked overjoyed, Diego still looked skeptical. “So you like it?” He asked, furrowing his brows and squaring his shoulders in a way that just screamed ‘I’m trying very hard to make you think I don’t care, but I’m extremely bad at it.’

He nodded furiously. At his approval, Allison leaned around him to look towards the hallway and yelled, “It’s good!”

Klaus turned to see who she was yelling at, but he couldn’t see anyone through the doorway. However he did hear a bunch of hushed speaking and angry grunting. After a few moments, a glorious sight appeared before him. Luther, dressed as an extremely large Santa Claus, was dragging along a furious looking Five, who was dressed as an elf. The more Five shook his head in anger, the more the bells on his pointy hat jingled. Klaus couldn’t contain himself and started laughing. Allison, Diego, and even Ben joined him, and soon all of them struggled to breathe as they wiped tears of laughter from their eyes. Five bunched up his fists and looked ready to fight, Luther looked red with embarrassment. 

Luther cleared his throat and tried to speak confidently, but embarrassment had a hold of him, and his voice wavered as he announced, “Merry Octobermas!”

Klaus collapsed into another fit of laughter.

After he had calmed down he sat on the couch, flanked on either side by Allison and Diego. Luther and Five sat in two lounge chairs (very far apart, at Five’s insistence), and Vanya eventually wandered in holding two massive bowls of popcorn and apologized for being late to the party. Klaus couldn’t stop giggling. It was so ridiculous. He tried to listen to Five complaining about how long it took to set up, but he was distracted by the fact that Ben was losing his mind. It seemed that he couldn’t get over the ridiculousness of the situation either. He kept angrily pointing to Luther, still in his costume, and ranting about how cheesy it was. Klaus coughed, trying to sneak some words in underneath, “someone’s grumpy,” he coughed again, “because he’s dead,” he followed it up by clearing his throat loudly.

“I’m grumpy because this is ridiculous!” Ben yelled, angrily waving his book in the air. “Life isn’t a Hallmark movie! What is going on?!”

Klaus bit his lip to stifle his laughter as he tried to tune his spectral brother out and listen to his living ones. After a bit more ranting and raving, Ben gave up. He sat cross legged on the floor facing the couch, occasionally pointing and throwing accusations (“Five never even made me a Christmas present! I made him sock puppets, and what did I get? Nothing!”) as his siblings chatted. After his ranting turned to snide comments turned to resigned silence, Klaus felt bad for him. So he raised his bowl of popcorn and shook it to get everyone’s attention. 

“I’m going to talk about my emotions,” he announced, getting the expected groans and eye rolls out of Five, Diego, and Ben. “This is stupid,” he said, ignoring the looks of puppy dog sadness that suddenly appeared on the faces of Vanya, Allison, and Luther. God, his siblings were predictable.”However! It’s the special kind of stupidity that only you guys can master, and it means a lot to me, in my heart or whatever,” he let his voice crack at the end to add some drama.

He looked at Ben for a brief moment and then resumed speaking, his tone more serious this time, “I know we didn’t get to do this shit when we were kids, and some of us have never done it at all,” he looked at Five, who huffed and avoided the eye contact. “But it’s really cool, and I’m sure that if our lovely brother Ben were here, he would love it too,” he lowered his popcorn bowl, but then raised it again quickly, “Oh! Wait! I have a weird question.”

He waited for Luther to give him a nervous, “Go on.”

“If Ben were here for some crazy reason, he’d be invited to this party, right?”

His siblings all looked at each other in confusion. Vanya spoke first, “Totally, right?” Everyone nodded and spoke in agreement. Klaus grinned and threw some popcorn at a delighted Ben, who tried to look grumpy as it passed through him.

There were a few moments of silence as they all wondered if someone else should make a speech.

“So,” Diego began, “We’re gonna pretend he didn’t just talk about his feelings, right?”

He was met with a collective sigh of relief as everyone agreed.


End file.
